


Coito, Ergo Sum

by Taz



Category: Invisible Man
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taz/pseuds/Taz





	Coito, Ergo Sum

_Ever wondered how we know we exist? The philosopher Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am.” Not one of your deeper thinkers, Descartes. He thinks he is but where’s the proof? Well to be fair, there’s no record of Descartes ever misplacing his body and if you want to get technical about it, neither have I, but I’ve got this gland and I can secrete this synthetic hormone stuff that my certified scientific genius dead brother called quicksilver. It makes light bend around me. I could pinch that girl’s butt, if I wanted. . ._

_Hey, Baby, how ’bout a little sugar? Talk about ‘_ _Victoria_ _’s’ secret, Honey, you haven’t got one. _

_Or, it could be me with my hand in the Salvation Army guy’s bucket instead of. . ._

“You!

Hey, Ding-a-ling! Are you listening?

Trust me, it could hurt worse. . .”

_Guess he didn’t want to chat. Thing is, I could help myself to a hot pretzel off this cart right here and no one would know if I did, because, when I want, for all practical purposes, I’m invisi — _

_Hey!  Slow down, Hobbes! _

_Wait ’til the last Saturday before Christmas and all I got to say is, you’d better be heading for Lord and Taylor because I’ve dropped enough hints about that bomber jacket with the mouton collar that you’d have to thick as brick not to. . ._

_Hobbes is thick as brick. Don’t know who he thinks he’s kidding. Says Bobby Hobbes doesn’t do Christmas. I remind him that I did Hanukah. Tells me he has some errands to run. I say why I don’t go with you and we can catch the new Bond flick when you’re done? And then he pulls some dumb excuse about getting the van winterized and dropping off the dry cleaning and picking up a fifth of Chivas for The Official and a box of ass-wipes for Ebert and he doesn’t know how long it’s all going to take and how ‘bout tomorrow? Yeah, right. Hobbes’s fault if I’m black and blue tomorrow. The Official won’t pay to get the heater in the back of the van repaired but Hobbes at least could have stowed the spare and the jack from when he fixed the last flat, and he wouldn’t have as many flats if he didn’t corner like Mario Andretti, and he didn’t have to stick it in the ass end of that wind tunnel they call a parking garage, and —_

“Hey! Look where you’re goin’! You got mustard on my— No! Outta the way! He’s cutting through Border’s!

Ouch! Move it!

Excuse me!

Perdon!

Will you move?

Sorry, Ma’am! Sorry! I know; cold hands. Sorry! Just the ghost of Christmas presents. . .”

_Shit! Lost him! Better not be getting me a book. Damn! All right, take it easy, he has to come back this way… Starbucks. Good place for surveillance. Definitely, time for Starbucks. Dequickify. Have some coffee. _

_You think invisibility would be a thief’s wet dream. Yeah? Ever have that weird thing where, just for a second, you can’t see your feet where you think they should be and stumble on a set of stairs you’ve danced down maybe a hundred times? A fraction of a second of doubt and you nearly break your neck. Well, being invisible is weird like that. It’s weird like being new in a strange town. It’s weird like being alone in a crowd. . . God, Lady! You have to order all that? . . .it’s weirder and worse than the first day of school where everyone already knows you’re the stupid one so no one even checks out whether you’re wearing white socks or not ‘cause no one knows you’re there. After a while you start wondering if you are there and pretty soon Reality’s playing peek-a-boo with your brain. _

_I could feel the thin edge of wedge splitting my sanity, even after they got the counteragent worked out and my hormones sort of balanced. With every rush of adrenalin, poof! In my job, it’s nothing but adrenalin. Then I noticed Hobbes and me would be walking down the hall; I’d be practicing being quietly invisible, I’d stop, he’d turn around and ask me if I think we’ve got all day to screw around. I told him it was weird. He said it was air currents. _

_Okay. _

_Except paperwork is overdue and I’m playing least-in-sight, avoiding Ebert. I say toss me that staple puller over there. Hobbes will do it when he gets around to it so I sit down. The staple puller lands in my lap. He said the chair squeaked. _

_Right._

_We’re sparring, I’m quicksilvered, the Keeper says it’s good for developing my kinetic sense, and I can’t lay a glove on him. He nails me. _

_Every time. _

_I mean, I know he’s a good agent and all, but how does that account for me breaking into his apartment before he gets home and standing there in the dark with my back to him and him saying, ‘Hi, Darien!’ I wasn’t moving. There were no air currents. He said it was pheromones. I said that was a load of hockey pucks; Keeper says even my pheromones are quicksilvered and humans can’t smell them anyway. He said I farted and should knock off the coffee. . . _

 “Double espresso, please. And one of those eggnog chocolate chip brownies.”

_…or the Aqua Velva. I wasn’t wearing Aqua Velva! He said it doesn’t matter; a good agent has a sixth sense for these things and stop sulking. Then he came over to exactly where I was standing, wrapped his arms around my waist like it didn’t bother him that I can freeze alcohol with my breath. And that would have been all right, I can barely feel anything when I’m quicksilvered, but he kissed the spot on my neck. Nobody else, except Casey, ever knew about the spot on my neck. My knees gave. Hobbes caught me and, if I bawled in his arms like a baby, he hasn’t mentioned more than thirty or forty times since. _

_That was pretty much it. _

_Hobbes likes it lying on his back, me fucking him quicksilvered. He says I’m an incubus, his demon lover. Most people would think they were being fucked by a Popsicle, but he’s wide open, boiling inside, never so totally lost in pleasure that he isn’t looking at me._

_Shakespeare said, “The eye sees not itself but by reflection.” I have all the proof I need that I exist. My reflection is in Hobbes’s eyes, even when I’m invisible. . .and one of these days I’m going to figure out how he does it, but right now it’s time to get moving. Somewhere in the Pentagon City Mall, Bobby Hobbes had better be Christmas shopping for his demon lover. . . and it better not be for aftershave. . . if he thinks I’m settling for aftershave, after getting him that Sig Saur P226 he’s been drooling over. . . . _

 

Finis

 

 


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